Lamp Post

Lamp Post, Michigan Street Bridge, South Bend, Indiana
This is another photo I took with the old Kodak Duaflex III I bought on eBay. When I scanned the negative, the sky looked much bluer than I recall it being at the time I took the picture, but I elected to leave it that way. I also resisted the temptation to use postprocessing to remove the abundant sediment in the globes, which no doubt represents several years' accumulation of dead insects and other detritus.

Monochrome Maniacs: Niles Daily Sun

Building formerly housing the Niles (Michigan) Daily Sun newspaper, published from 1890 till it merged with the Niles Daily Star in 1919.

This photo was obtained with a Holga 120CFN camera. The camera comes with a plastic mask which serves two purposes--producing a 6X6 cm image with (relatively) sharp borders, and holding the AA batteries for the flash in place. I was experimenting with leaving the mask out and taping the batteries in place. I learned a third function of the mask is protecting the film from reflections off the batteries and their metal contacts in the camera. Neglecting to cover the bright shiny battery contacts with tape resulted in the extreme exposures at the corners of the image. This seems appropriate for a picture of the Daily Sun.

Breaking News

Some time ago, I made the editorial decision to spin off a couple of my obsessions--The Marx Brothers and Franklin Pierce--into separate blogs. However, an event of such monumental importance has occurred that I am making an exception. Please visit my other blog Getting Pierced for details.

Photo-Alternative: The Past As Future--Entries

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was fortunate enough to have a couple pictures accepted for the Berea Arts Council's exhibit, "Photo-Alternative: the Past as Future," sponsored by Rene Hales.

I'm not posting this again just to toot my own horn (but then if I don't do it who will?), but because I thought I should post the photos that were accepted. I've noticed that a couple of my fellow exhibitors have posted their pictures on their blogs (see links at the end of this post). I also noticed that when I emailed the above postcard to friends and family, some of them didn't read the caption, and thought the photos by Jyl Kelley on the card were mine. I thought I would post not only the accepted works here, but the rejected ones as well. Readers can decide if they agree with the juror's selection, or would have made different selections, or would have rejected all of them. All were done with a Lensbaby Composer lens on a NIkon D90.

First, the rejects:
Contemplation
Dream in Yellow and White
And the ones accepted:
Maple in a Japanese Garden
Crypt
Other photographers' entries, which by the way I like a lot, can be seen by following these links:

Gregg Kemp
PK Konduri

Skywatch Friday Season 4, Episode 9

St. Patrick Catholic Church, South Bend, Indiana

Kodak Shadow Moment Explained

For the last Shadow Shot Sunday, I posted an image without commentary, and left the interpretation up to the reader. My wife Mary thought the photo had religious overtones, such as Jesus kneeling before John the Baptist. Interestingly, W.Z. Snyder, #167 Dad, also came up with a religious interpretation-- doubting Thomas kneeling before Jesus. Dr. Renzulli saw the image as reflecting "...the growing conflict between the mundane routine of radiology and the obvious pent up creativity that is demanding its own voice," and there is more than a little truth in that interpretation.

Others leaving comments said they could think of stories, but didn't give specifics.


Maybe it's a bit of a spoiler, but here is an annotated version of the picture. The Kodak Duaflex III is an old twin lens reflex (TLR) camera, meant to take square pictures on 620 film, and the camera normally would be held in front of the photographer at waist level. Since I had it loaded with 35mm film, I had to turn it sideways and hold it as pictured to get the proper orientation of the shadows on the film, thus explaining the appearance of an arm raised in a gesture of blessing. It just so happened that my legs were positioned to make it look like I was wearing a robe (I rarely wear a robe in public these days), and the dog happened to turn her head to make her shadow look like a kneeling human. Some might cite this an example of what Carl Jung called synchronicity.

Now you know...the rest of the story.

Good day.

Monochrome Mausoleum

The Oliver Mausoleum at Riverview Cemetery, South Bend, Indiana, photographed with a Holga 120CFN, through the iron gate and glass at the entrance.

Click for larger version

Kodak Shadow Moment

I provide the picture. The story is up to you.

Skywatch Friday Season 4, Episode 8

For this week's Skywatch, a double exposure obtained with a Holga 120 CFN. I took one exposure, turned the camera upside down, and took the other. This is how the picture came out of the camera. There was no Photoshop manipulation involved.

Photo Alternative: The Past As Future

Click to enlarge
The Berea Arts Council is staging an exhibit featuring photos using alternative means of capturing and developing photos. I've had two photos accepted for the show. Both were obtained with a Lensbaby Composer lens on a digital SLR. Just to clarify, the pictures on the flyer above are not mine.